If your local McDonald’s has been getting your order confidently wrong with an AI chatbot at the drive-thru, I have good news for you: The company is ending the program for now. The company told franchisees that it’s winding down an AI drive-thru ordering partnership with IBM “no later than July 26th, 2024,” according to trade publication Restaurant Business.
Bloomberg reported that the deal was partly for a chatbot named “Ask Pickles” that employees could use for guidance on things like cleaning ice cream machines. Even so, Google partnered with Wendy’s, which started testing drive-thru AI based on its tech last year and has since expanded that trial. Fast food companies in general are hungry for AI. White Castle has been testing AI provided by speech recognition company SoundHound. And Carl’s Jr.